
(c1 



MR EVERETT'S ADDRESS 



ON THE 



SECOND CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 



4 



or THE 



ARRIVAL OF GOV. WINTHROP 

AT CHARLESTOWN. 





Glass F^T 



Book. 



< Bn 



^ 



3%^ri^ 



iiN 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED 



ON THE 28TH OF JUNE, 1830, 



THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE 



ErrC^j^l of ©robernot Wiintfiv^i^ 



AT CHARLESTOWN. 



31eUberelr anti ^ublfsteU at tjjc Hcquest 

OF THE 

CHARLESTOWN LYCEUM. 



BY EDWARD EVERETT. 



CHARLESTOWN: 
PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM \V. WHEILDON. 

BOSTON: 

CARTER AND HENDEZ. 
1830. 



3.J 



• Ms 



DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, TO WIT: 

District Clerk's Office. 
BE it remembered, that on the second day of July, A.D. 1830, and in the fiftyfourth 
year of the Independnnce of the United States of America, William W. VVheilddn, 
of the said District, lias deposited in this office, the titltf of a book, the right where- 
of he claims as proprii-tor, in the words following, to wit: — 

•'An Address delivered on the 28ih of June, 1830, the anniversary of the arrival of 
Governor W iiithriip at Charlestnvvn. Delivered and Published at the request of the 
Charlesti.wn Lyceum. By Edward Everett." 

In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United Plates, entitled, "An Act 
for the encouragementof learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, 
to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned," 
and also to an Act, entitled, "An Act supplementary to an Act, entitled, 'An Act for 
the encouragement of learning, by secuiinp the copies of maps, charts and liooks, to 
the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned ;' and 
extending the benetits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and etching histo- 
^i,„i... 1 -"or titints." 

JNO. W. DAVIS, 
^T^„T. ^f ,t,f District o£ Massachusttt.tj,.. 



CHARL.ESTOWN : 

From the Aurora Press— William W. Whelldon. 






'*e^^. ^€xt . 



t^^i 



ADDRG8.S. 



This day completes the second century, 
feince Governor Winthrop explored the bank.s 
of the Mystic River. From his arrival at 
Charlestown, accompanied by a large nnmber of 
settlers, furnished with a supply of everything 
necessary for the foundation of the colony, and 
especially bringing with them the Colonial Char- 
ter, may, with great propriety, be dated the 
foundation of Massachusetts, and in it, that of 
New England. There are other interesting 
events, in our early history, which have, in like 
manner, been justly commemorated, for their 
connection with the same great era. The land- 
ing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, has been regard- 
ed, from the first, as a period, from which Ave 
may with projDriety, compute the settlement of 
New England; and has been celebrated, with 
every demonstration of pious and grateful re- 
spect. The completion of the second century, 
from the arrival of Governor Endecott at Sa- 
iem, was noticed two years since, by our fellow 



- 4 

citizens of that place, in a manner worthy of the 
interest and magnitude of the event ; and the 
anniversary of the commencement of the settle- 
ment of Boston, is reserved for a like celebra- 
tion, in the autumn of the present year. 

Were these celebrations a matter of mere cer- 
emony, or of official observance, their multipli- 
cation would be idle and oppressive. But they 
are all consecrated to events of real interest. — 
They have a tendency to extend the knowledge 
of the early history of the country. They are 
just tributes to the memory of worthy men, to 
whom we are under everlasting obligations. — 
They furnish fit occasions for inculcating the 
great principles, which led to the settlement of 
our happy country ; and by connecting some 
interesting associations with the spots familiar to 
us, by daily visitation, they remind us that there 
is something worthy to be commemorated, in the 
soil which we inhabit ; and thus furnish food for 
an enlightened patriotism. The genius of our 
institutions has made this the chief means of 
perpetuating, by sensible memorials, the fame of 
excellent men and great achievements. Wisely 
discarding those establishments, which have con- 
nected with hereditary possessions in the soil and 
transmissible dignities in the State, the nam.e 
and family of Discoverers and Conquerors, it has 
been with us left to the affection and patriotism, 
which prompt the observance of these occasions, 



. to preserve the worth of our forefathers from 
forgetfalness. 

For these considerations, it was thought ex- 
pedient, by the Members of the Charlestown Ly- 
ceum, that the arrival of Governor Winthrop, 
on our shores, with the Charter of the Colony, 
should not pass unnoticed. When I was first 
requested to deliver an address on the occasion, 
it was my expectation, that it would be done 
with no greater publicity, than that, with which 
the lectures before this institution have been us- 
ually delivered. The event, however, has been 
considered as of sufficient importance to receive 
a more public notice ; and in this opinion of the 
Members of the Charlestown Lyceum, and our 
fellow citizens who unite with them, I have 
cheerfully acquiesced. It will not, however, be 
expected of me, wholly to abandon the form, 
which my address, in its origin, was intended to 
assume, although less adapted, than I could 
wish, to the character of this vast audience, be- 
fore whom I have the honor to appear. 

In performing the duty which devolves upon 
me, in consequence of this arrangement, I pro- 
pose briefly to narrate the history of the event, 
which we celebrate, and then to dwell on some 
of the general topics, which belong to the day 
and the occasion- 
When America was discovered, the great and 
interesting questions presented themselves, what 



right had the European discoverers in tlie new 
found continent, and in what way were its set- 
tlement and colonization to proceed. 

The first discovery was made, under the au- 
spices of European Governments, which admit- 
ted the right of the Head of the Catholic Church, 
to dispose of all the kingdoms of the Earth; and 
of course of all newly discovered regions, which 
had not before been appropriated. This right 
of the Head of the Catholic Church was recog- 
nized by protestant princes, only so far, as it 
might be backed, by that of actual discovery ; — 
and although the Kings of Spain and Portugal 
had received from the Pope a distributive grant 
of all the newly discovered countries on the 
Globe, the Sovereign of England claimed the 
right of making his own discoveries, and appro- 
priating them, as he pleased, to the benefit of his 
own subjects and government. Under this claim, 
and in consequence of the discoveries of Cabot, 
our mother country invested herself with this 
great and ultimate right of disposing of the Amer- 
ican Continent, from the gulf of Mexico, north- 
wardly, till it reached the limits, covered by the 
like claim of actual discovery, on the part of 
other Governments.* 

It is not my intention to enter into the discus- 
sion of the nature and extent of this right of dis- 



*Opini()n of tbe Supreme Court of the United Statjs, in tlie case of Johnson 4" Gra- 
ham's Lessees, vs. Mcintosh; 8th Wheatun. 



eovery. If we admit, that it was in the will of 
Providence, and for the interest of humanity, 
that America should be settled, by a civilized 
race of men, we admit, at the same time, a per- 
fect right, in some way or other, to effect that 
settlement. And though it may be out of our 
power to remove all the difficulties, which at- 
tend the question, — although we cannot perhaps, 
on the received principles of natural law, theo- 
retically reconcile the previous rights of the abor- 
iginal population with the accruing rights of the 
discoverers and settlers, yet we must either 
allow that those rights are not, upon the whole, 
irreconcilable, or we must maintain that it was 
the will of Providence, and for the greatest good 
of mankind, that America should remain in the 
condition in which the discoverers found it. 

No judicious person, at the present day, will 
maintain this 5 and no such opinion was enter- 
tained by the governments of Europe, nor by the 
enterprising, patriotic, and liberal men, on whom 
it devolved to deal practically with this great 
subject. How great it was, — it is true, — they 
did not feel 5 as we, with a like subject thrown 
practically into our hands, I mean the settlement 
of our own unsettled public domain, are equally 
insensible to its importance. Although there is 
a great lodgment of civilized men on this conti- 
nent, which is rapidly extending itself, yet there 
is still a vast region wholly unsettled, and pre- 



8 



senting very nearly the same aspect to us, which 
the whole North American Continent, did to our 
forefathers, in Great Britain, But no man, I 
think, who analyzes either the popular sentiment 
of this community or the legislative policy of this 
government, will deny, that the duty to be per- 
formed, by the people of this generation, in set- 
tling these unsettled regions of our country, has 
scarce ever presented itself in its magnitude, 
gi'andeur, and solemnity, to the minds either of 
People or of Rulers. It was justly remarked, 
more tlian once this winter, in the great debate 
in the Senate of the United States, nominally 
on the subject of the Public Domain, that this 
subject was the only one scarcely glanced at, in 
the discussion; and that subject, I may say with- 
out fear of contradiction, is as important to the 
people of the United States and to the cause of 
liberty throughout the world, as the question of 
colonizing America, which presented itself to the 
Nations and Governments of Europe, in the fif- 
teenth and sixteenth centuries. 

These questions are never comprehended, till 
it is too late. Experience alone unfolds their 
magnitude. We may strain our minds to grasp 
them, but they are beyond our power. There 
is no political calculus^ which can deal with the 
vast elements of a Nation's growth. Provi- 
dence, or destiny, or the order of things, in 
which, while we think ourselves the agents, we 



are hiiiiible instruments, — aided by some high 
impulses from the minds and hearts of wise and 
great men, catching a prophetic glimpse of the 
fatnrc fortunes of our race, — these decide the 
progress of nations; and educe consequences, the 
most stupendous, from causes seemingly least 
proportionate to the effect. 

But, though we do not find any traces, in the 
public sentiment or in the legislation of Europe, 
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of an 
accurate foresight of the great work, which that 
age was called upon to perform, yet there was 
unquestionably a distinct perception, that the 
enclosure of the civilized ftimilies of the earth 
had been suddenly enlarged. Spain and Portu- 
gal poured themselves forth impetuously into the 
new found region; and Great Britain, though 
with something of a constitutional tardiness, fol- 
lowed the example. 

The first British patents for the settlement 
of the discoveries on the North American Conti- 
nent were those of Sir Humphrey Gilbert 
and Sir Walter Raleigh, in the latter quar- 
ter of the sixteenth century. Those and some 
similar grants were vacated, from inability to 
fulfil their cond.itions; or from other causes, failed 
to take permanent effect. When Q,ueen Eliza- 
beth died in 1603, not a European family was 
known to exist on the Continent of America 
north of the gulf of Mexico. On the 10th of 



10 



April, 160(J, King James granted a patent, 
dividing that portion of North America, which 
lies between tlie thirty-fourth and forty-lillth de- 
grees of latitude, into two nearly equal districts. 
The southern, called the first colony, he granted 
to the London Company. The northern, called 
the second colony, he granted to the Plymouth 
Company, and allotted it as a place of settlement 
to several knights, gentlemen, and merchants, of 
Bristol, Plymouth, and other parts of the west 
of England. This patent conveyed a grant of 
the property of the land along the coast for fifty 
miles, on each side from the place of their first 
habitation, and extending one hundred miles into 
the interior.* 

Under these charters, various attempts at col- 
onization and settlement were made, and at first, 
with very doubtful success, by the Virginia Com- 
pany. These of course, it is no part of our pre- 
sent business to pursue. In 1614, the adven- 
turous Captain Smith, famous in his connec- 
tions with the settlement of Virginia, was sent 
out by four individuals in England, Avho were 
disposed to engage in an enterprize on these dis- 
tant shores, to explore the coast of North Vir- 
ginia. He arrived on the coast of Maine at the 
end of April 1614, and in the course of the fol- 
lowing summer, he visited the North Eastern 



*rorthe authorities, see Dr Holme^' standard work, The. Annals of .Imtrica, under 
tb« respective years. 



11 

shores of America, from the Penobscot River to 
Cape Cod ; entered and examined the rivers, 
surveyed the country, and carried on a trade 
with the natives.* Having, on his retm'n to 
England, constructed from his 'surveys a map of 
the country, it was submitted to Prince Charles, 
who gave the name of New England to the re- 
gion explored by Smith, and bestowed his own 
name on what was then supposed to be its prin- 
cipal river. The season, in which Captain 
Smith visited the country, is that, in which it 
appears in its greatest beauty. His account of 
it was such as to excite the attention, and kindle 
the imagination of men in England, and the pro- 
fitable returns of his voyage, united with these 
impressions to strengthen the disposition, which 
was felt to colonize the newly explored region. 
Several attempts were accordingly made to carry 
this design into efiect, for the benefit and under 
the auspices of the Plymouth company, but all 
without success. The great enterprise was re- 
served to be accomplished by a very different 
instrumentality. 

In 1617, the church of Mr Robinson at Ley- 
den had come to the resolution of exiling them- 
selves to the American Wilderness. As the 
principal attempts at settlement had been made 
in the Southern colony or Virginia, their thoughts 



♦The account of this voya;e is in Smith's History of Virginia, New England, an< 
the Somer Isles. Vol. II p. 173. Richmond edition. 



12 

were turned to that quarter, and they sent two 
of their number to London, to negotiate with 
the Virginia company on the terms of their set- 
tlement ; and to ascertain whether liberty of 
conscience would be granted them, in the new 
country. The Virginia company was disposed 
to grant them a patent, with as ample privileges 
as it was in their power to convey. The King, 
however, could not be induced to patronize the 
design, and promised only a connivance in it, so 
long as they demeaned themselves peaceably. — 
In 1619, the arrangement was finally made with 
the Virginia company 5 and in the following 
year, the ever memorable emigration to Ply- 
mouth took place. In consequence of the treach- 
erous and secret interference of the Dutch, who 
had their own designs upon that part of the coast 
which had been explored by Hudson, the Cap- 
tain of the vessel, \^hich transported the first 
company to America, conveyed them to a place, 
without the limits of the patent of the Virginia 
company; and where of course the Pilgrims were 
set down beyond the protection of any grant 
and the pale of any law . In three or four years a 
patent was obtained of the Plymouth company, 
and on this sole basis the first New England 
settlement rested, till its in corporation with the 
colony of Massachusetts Bay.* 

•Robertson's History of America, Book X. Works Vol XI p. 265. 



13 

In the year 1620, the old patent of the Ply- 
mouth company was revoked, and a new one 
was granted to some of the highest nobility and 
gentry of England and their associates, consti- 
tuting them and their successors, "the council 
established at Plymouth, in the County of 
Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering and 
governing of New England in America." By 
this patent, that part of America, which lies be- 
tween the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of 
North latitude in breadth, and in length by all 
the breadth aforesaid, throughout the main, from 
sea to sea, w^as given to them, in absolute prop- 
erty. Civil and jurisdictional powers like those 
which had been granted by the Virginia patent, 
were conferred on the council established by this 
charter; on w hicli as on a basis, rested all the sub- 
sequent patents and grants of this portion of the 
country. By this grant, a considerable part of 
the British colonies in North America 5 the 
W'hole of the New England States, and of New 
York ; about half of Pennsylvania ; two thirds 
of New" Jersey and Ohio ; a half of Indiana 
and Illinois, the w^hole of Michigan, Huron, and 
the territory of the United States westw^ard of 
them, and on both sides of the Rocky mountains, 
and from a point considerably within the Mexi- 
can dominions on the Pacific Ocean, nearly up 
to Nootka Sound were liberally granted by King 
James, "to the council established at Plymouth, 
in the County of Devon." 



u 

From the period of the landing of the Pilgrims 
at Plymouth, the intolerance of the established 
church in England became daily more oppres- 
vvive. The non-conforming ministers were si- 
lenced, ejected, imprisoned, and exiled ; and 
numerous examples of the extremest rigor of the 
law, were made both of them and the laity. — 
The entire extent, to which these severities were 
carried, may be estimated, from their amount in 
a single instance. On the impeachment of 
Bishop Wren, it was charged that daring two 
years and a half, for which he administered the 
diocese of Norwich, fifty ministers were deprived 
of their places, for not complying with the pre- 
scribed ceremonies, and three thousand of the 
laity compelled to leave the kingdom.* 

These increasing severities, and the necessity, 
under which conscientious men were laid, of 
abandoning their principles or their homes, turn- 
ed the thoughts of many persons of consideration 
and property toward a permanent asylum in 
New England. The first steps were restrained 
and gradual; but a few years witnessed the ful- 
fillment of the design. In 1624, Mr White of' 
Dorchester, in England, a celebrated non-con- 
forming minister, induced a number of mer- 
chants and other gentlemen to attempt another 
settlement, as a refnge for^those whose religious 

.■'Neal, Vol. I. p. in, J21 ; Grnli;\nie's United States, Vol. f. p. jaa. 



15 

principles exposed them to oppression at home; 
and by their contributions, under a Hcense ob- 
tained from the Plymouth settlers, an establivsh- 
ment was commenced at Cape Ann. The care 
of this establishment was the following year 
committed by the proprieters to Mr Roger 
Con A NT, a person of great worth, who had, 
however, retired from the colony at Plymouth. 
After a short residence at Cape Ann, Roger 
Con A NT removed a little further to the West- 
ward, and fixed upon a place called by the In- 
dians Naumkeag, as a more advantageous place 
of settlement, and as a spot well adapted for the 
reception of those, who were disposed to imitate 
the example of their brethren, and seek a refuge 
from tyranny in the Western wilderness. The 
accounts of this place circulated in England, 
among those who w^ere maturing this design; and 
Mr Con A NT, though deserted by almost all his 
brethren, was induced by Mr White to remain 
at Salem, by the promise of procuring a patent 
and a reinforcement of settlers. Accordingly on 
the 19th of March 1628, an agreement was con- 
cluded between the council of Plymouth, and 
certain gentlemen associated in the neighborhood 
of Dorchester in England, under the auspices of 
Mr White, of that place ; and a patent was 
conveyed to -these associates of all the tract of 
country, laying between three miles north of tlie 
Merrimack and three miles south of Charles 



16 

Rivers, and extending from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific Ocean. These associates were Sir 
Henry Roswell, Sir John Young, Thom- 
as SouTHCoAT, John Humphrey, John 
Endecott and Simon Whetcomb; and the 
patent ran to them, their heirs and associates.* 

Mr White, in pursuit of his project for estab- 
hshing" a colony for the non-conformists, was in 
communication with persons of that description, 
in different parts of England, and, through his 
agency, the six patentees, whose names I have 
just mentioned, were brought into connection 
with several religious persons in London and 
the neighboring country, who at first associated 
with them, and afterwards purchased out the 
right of the three first named of the six paten- 
tees.! Among these new associates were John 
WiNTHROP, Isaac Johnson^ and Sir Rich- 
ard Saltonstall. 

Thus reinforced, the strength of the company 
was vigorously bent upon the establishment of 
the colony in New England. They organized 
themselves, by choosing Matthew Cradock, 
Governor of the colony, and Thomas Goff, 
Deputy Governor, and eighteen assistants. By 
this company, and in the course of the same 
summer of 1628, John Endecott was sent 



♦Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay, Vol. I. p. 8. 

tPee also the detail in Governor Dudley's mort interesting letter, to the Countess 
of Lincoln, of 12th March 1630, written, as he says, "rudely, havinc yet no table, nor 
Mlier room to write in, than by the fire sid^, on'my knee, in this sharp Winter." — 
Historical Collections, Fir.st Series. Vol. VIH. p. 36. 



17 

over, with a considerable number of planters 
and servants, to " establish a plantation at Sa- 
lem, to make way for settling the colony, and 
be their agent to order all affairs, till the paten- 
tees themselves should come." Endecott 
sailed from Weymouth on the 20th of June, and 
his first letter to the company, in London, bears 
date 13th September, 1628.* 

In the same year of 1628, the foundation of 
the town of Charlestown was laid, under the 
patronage of Governor Endecott, but not, I 
apprehend, by any of the members of his party. 
As this is a matter of some local importance, I 
shall dwell for a moment upon it. It is w^ell 
known that Ralph, William, and Richard 
Sprague, in the course of the summer of 1628, 
traversed the country, between Salem and Charles 
River, and made a settlement at Charlestown; 
and it is commonly supposed that, as they came 
from Salem, wath Governor Eindecott's con- 
sent, they were of the company which he brought 
over.f 

On looking, however, into our original town 
records, in the hand writing of Increase Now- 
ELL, I find the following remark. After relating 
the arrival of Endecott at Salem, the Record 
goes on to say : — "• Under whose wang, there 



♦Prince's Chronology, p. 249. 

f'The Spragues, (who went thither [to Charlestown,] from Endecott's company 
at Salem.)" Winthrop's Journal, Savage's edition, Vol. I. p. 53. JVofe. And so oth- 
er writers. 



18 

were a few also that settle and plant np and 
down, scattering in several places of the Bay ; 
where though they meet with the dangers, diffi- 
culties, and wants, attending new plantations in 
a solitary wilderness, so far remote from their 
native country, yet were they not long without 
company, for in the year of our Lord one thou- 
sand six hundred and twenty-eight, came over 
from England several people at their own charg- 
es and arrived at Salem, After which, people 

came over yearly in great numbers, in 

years many hundreds arrived, and settled not 
only in the Massachusetts Bay, but did suddenly 
spread themselves into other colonies also. 

"Among those, who arrived at Salem, at their 
own charge, w^ere Ralph Sprague, with his 
brethren Richard and William, who, with 
three or four more, by joint consent and appro- 
bation of Mr John Endecott, Governor, did 
the same summer of Anno 1628, undertake a 
journey from Salem and travelled the woods, 
about twelve miles, to the Westward, and light- 
ed of a place, situate and lying on the Nortb 
Bank of Charles River, full of Indians, called 
Aberginians. Their old chief Sachem being 
dead, his eldest son, by the English called John 
Sagamore, was their chief; a man naturally of 
gentle and good disposition, by whose free con- 
sent, they settled about the hill of the same 
place, by the natives called Mishawum ; where 



19 

they found but one Euglisii pallisadoed and 
tliatched house, wherein lived Thomas Wal- 
FORD, a smith, situate on the south end of the 
Avesternmost hill of the east field, a little way 
from Charles River side ; and upon surveying, 
they found it was a neck of land generally full of 
stately timber, as was the main, and the land 
lying on the east side of the river called Mistick 
river, (from the farm Mr Cradock's servants 
had planted, called Mistick, which this river led 
up into,) indeed, generally all the country round 
about was an uncouth wilderness, full of timber." 

This passage seems to establish the fact that 
the three Spragues, the founders of the set- 
tlement in tliis place, were not members of Gov- 
ernor Endecott's company, but independent 
adventurers, wlio came over to Salem at their 
own cost. They were persons of character, 
substance, and enterprize : excellent citizens, 
generous public benefactors ; and the heads of a 
very large and respectable family of descendants. 

The patent from the council of Plymouth gave 
to the associates as good a right to the soil, as 
the council possessed, but no powers of govern- 
ment. For this object, the royal charter was 
necessary. An humble petition lor such a char- 
ter was presented to the King in council, and on 
on the 4th of March 1629, the charter passed 
the seals, confirming the patent of the council of 
Plymouth, and creating the Governor and com- 



20 

pany of the Massachusetts Bay, in New-Eng- 
land, a body politic and corporate, in deed, fact, 
and name. By this charter, the company were 
empowered to elect forever out of the freemen of 
said company a Governor, deputy Governor and 
eighteen assistants, annually on the 4th Wednes- 
day of Easter term, and to make laws not re- 
pugnant to the laws of England.* 

At a meeting, or court, as it was called, of this 
company, held at London on the 30th of April 
following, a form of government was adopted for 
the colony. By this form of government the 
direction of affairs was committed to thirteen in- 
dividuals, to be resident in the colony, one of 
whom shall be Governor. Mr Endecott 
was by the same instrument appointed Govern- 
or, and six individuals were named councillors. 
These seven persons were authorized to choose 
three more, and the remaining two, requisite 
to make up the number of twelve, were to be 
designated by the old planters, as they were 
called, or persons who had settled in New Eng- 
land previous to the Massachusetts patent : — 
and whose rights, tliongh not provided for by 
that instrument, were treated with tenderness 
by the patentees. These magistrates were to 
continue in office one year. The mode in which 
their successors were to be chosen is not speci- 

♦ See the Charter in Hazard's State Papers, Vol. I. jip. 239—26*. 



21 

■fied by this form of government, but was proba- 
bly intended to be the same, as that observed in 
the first election.* 

In the course of this summer of 1629, six 
ships in the service of the company sailed for 
the infant colony, carrying wath them an ample 
supply of provisions and three hundred settlers. 
Mr Francis Higginson, who was named 
first on the list of the councillors chosen by 
the company, and the other ministers sent out 
for the spiritual instruction of the colony, em- 
barked for Naumkeag or Salem, in this fleet. 

The position at Salem, not being thought 
adapted to become the capital, Mr Thomas 
Graves, an engineer in the service of the com- 
pany, with about one hundred of the company's 
servants nnder his care, removed to this place in 
the course of the summer of 1629, where the 
Spragues and their companions, had establish- 
ed themselves the year before, and at this time, 
from the name of the river on which it stands, 
they called the place, Charlestown.j 

Thus far, the proceedings of the company were 
conducted, on the footing of a trading corpora- 
tion, organized in England, for the purpose of 
carrying on a commercial establishment, in a 
foreign and dependent region. Whatever higher 



* Hazard, Vol. I. p. 265, Fiom Massachusetts Records, A. Folio 9. 

fTliis event, and tliat of the arrival of Gov. Winthrop, are by a very singular 
anachronism, dated, the one in 162S, and the other in 1629, in our Charlestown Ue- 
eords. An attempt will be made on another occasion to explain this error. 



22 

motive had been proposed to themselves, by the 
active promoters of the colony, the royal gov- 
ernment of Great Britain, in granting the char- 
ter of the company, had probably no design to 
lay the foundation of a new Commonwealth, 
established on principles at w^ar witli those of 
the mother country. But larger designs were 
entertained on the part of some of the high mind- 
ed men, who engaged in the undertaking. Tlie 
civil and ecclesiastical oppression of the times 
had now reached that point of intolerable sever- 
ity, to which the evils of humanity are some- 
times permitted to extend, when Providence 
designs to apply to them a great and strange 
remedy. It was at this time, to all appearance, 
the reluctant but deliberate conviction of the 
thinking part of the community, — of that great 
class in society which constitutes the strength 
of England as of America, — that Old England 
had ceased to be a land for men of moderate 
private fortunes to live in. Society was tend- 
ing rapidly to that disastrous division of master 
and dependent, whicli is fatal to all classes of 
its members. The court was profligate, corrupt 
and arbitrary, beyond example, — and it remain- 
ed to be seen, whether the Constitution of the 
Government contained any check on its power 
and caprice. In the considerations for the 
Plantation of JYeiv England, drawn up a year 
or two before, by those, who took the lead in 



23 

founding tlie colony of Massachusetts Bay, it 
was forcibly stated " that England grew weary 
of her inhabitants ; insomuch that man, which is 
the most precious of all creatures, was there 
more vile and base than the earth he trod on ; 
and children and families (if unwealthy) were 
accounted a burdensome incumbrance instead of 
the greatest blessing."* 

From such a state of things, and the assurance 
of a perfect remedy in New England, for some 
of the evils, which they suffered, a considerable 
number of persons of great respectability, of 
good fortune, and of consideration in society, 
came to the resolution of leaving their native 
land, and laying the foundation of a better social 
system on these remote and uninhabited shores. 
As a preliminary to this, however, they requir- 
ed a total change of the footing on which the 
attempts at colonization had hitherto proceed- 
ed. It fell far short of their purpose to banish 
themselves to the new world, as the dependent 
servants of a corporation in London ; and they 
required, as a previous condition, that the char- 
ter of the colony and the seat of its government^ 
should be transferred from London to America. 
This was the turning point in the destiny o^f 
New England. Doubting the legality of such a 
step, they took the advice of counsel learned in 

* Matber'8 Magnalia, p. IT. 



24 



the law, and from them received the opinion, 
that the proposed transfer of the charter was 
legal. Against this opinion, there is, at the pre- 
sent day, a pretty general consent, of the writers 
on America, both in England and the United 
States; and it may therefore be deemed pre- 
sumptuous in me to express an opposite judg- 
ment.* But, though the removal of the charter 
was not probably contemplated, I find on 
reading it no condition prescribed, that the 
meetings of the corporation or the place of de- 
posit of the charter itself, should be in London, 
or any other particular place. The very design, 
for which the charter was granted to the com- 
pany, implied, of course, the possibility that a 
part of the freemen that compose it, should re- 
side in New England, and I perceive nothing in 
the instrument, forbidding tliem all to reside in 
that part of the King's dominions. 

Those, whose professional advice had been 
taken on the subject of removing the charter, 
having decided in favor of the legality of that 
measure, its expediency was submitted, at a 
court of the company, held at London, on the 
28th July 1629; and on the 29th of August, 
after hearing the reports of two committees, rais- 
ed to consider the arguments for and against the 
removal,! it was by the generality of the com- 



* Grahaine, in his History of the United States, expresses this opinion very stroag- 
ly. Vol. I. p. 256. 
t Prince's Ohronolosy. p. '263. 



25 

paiiy voted, that the patent and government of 
the company, be transferred to New England. 
At a subsequent meeting held October 20th, 
" the court, having received extraordinary great 
commendation of Mr John Winthrop, both 
for his integrity and sufficiency, as being one 
very well fitted for the place, with a full con- 
sent, choose him Governor for the ensuing year, 
to begin this day." — On the same day, the 
Deputy Governor and assistants were chosen, 
of persons at that time purposing to emigrate, 
some of whom, however, never executed this 
design. 

John Winthrop was a gentleman of good 
fortune, and was born at Groton, in the Coun- 
ty of Suffolk, on the 12th of January 1587,* 
and was educated by his father, who was him- 
self eminent for skill in the law, to that profes- 
sion. John Winthrop was so early distin- 
guished for his gravity, intelhgence, and learn- 
ing, that he was introduced into the magistracy 
of his county at the age of eighteen, and acquit- 
ted himself wdth great credit, in the discharge 
of its duties.! 

His family had, for two generations at least, 
distinguished itself for its attachment to the re- 



*Mather says June. I am inclined to think that this, with numerous other errors, 
which have exposed Mather to severe reprehension, were misprints arising from the 
circumstance, that his worlt was printed in London, and consequently not correct- 
ed by him. 

fBelkflap's American Biography, Art. Winthrop, Vol. II. p. 337. 

4 



formed religion, and John Winthrop was of 
that class of the English church, who thought 
that the work had not all been accomplished, in 
throwing off their allegiance to Rome. I believe 
we have no account of the circumstances, by 
which he was first led to take an mterest, in the 
settlement of New England, nor does his name 
occur in connection with the early history of the 
colony, till we find it mentioned among those, 
who, in 1628, united themselves with the Dor- 
chester adventurers. Having been, in October 
1629, elected Governor of the new State, for 
such it is henceforward to be regarded, he pre- 
pared himself to enter on this great enterprize, 
by disposing of his patrimony in England, which 
was valued at a rent of six or seven hundred 
pounds sterling per annum. The feelings with 
which he addressed himself to the noble work 
may be partly conceived from the nature of the 
enterprize and the character of the man, and they 
are more fully set forth, in his most admirable 
letters to his wife and son, with which the 
world has lately been favored.* 

On the 22d of March 1629, we find the 
Governor with two of his sons, on board a ves- 
sel at the Isle of Wight, bound for America, 
with Dudley, the Deputy Governor, and sev- 
eral of the assistants, and with a large number 

♦In the Appendix to Mr Savage's edition of liia journal. 



21 

of emigrants, embarked in a fleet which, with the 
vessels that preceded and followed them, the 
same season, amounted in the whole to seven- 
teen sail, all of which reached New England. 

From the period, at which Governor Win- 
THROP set sail for New England, till a short 
time before his death, he kept a journal of his 
life from day to day, — which has fortunately 
been preserved to us, partly in the original man- 
uscript, of which a portion was brought to light, 
and for the first time published, a few years 
ago.* The voyage of Governor Winthrop 
was unattended by any considerable incident, 
and on the 12th June, after a passage of ab.out 
six weeks, the vessel, in which he sailed, came 
to anchor off Salem. On landing, they found 
the colony there, in a disheartening condition, 
eighty of their number having died the preceding 
winter, and the survivors looking for support to 
the supplies expected by the Governor, which 
unfortunately did not arrive, in the vessel which 
brought him. 

The intention had been already taken not to 
establish the seat of Government at Salem. — 
After lying a few days at anchor off that place. 
Governor Winthrop imdertook to explore the 
Massachusetts Bay, " to find a place for sitting 
down." On the 17th June, old style, he proceed- 

* By Hon. James Savnge, with learned annotations on the whole work, now for tK* 
ilfel limA published entire, in two volume^). 



28 

ed up the Mistick River, as far as the spot, 
which he occupied as a country residence during 
his life, and which has preserved to the present 
day the name of the Ten Hills, given to it by him. 

Our records give but a mehmcholy account of 
the condition of things, which the colonists were 
called to encounter in their establishment at this 
place. We there read, that 

" The Governor and several of the assistants 
dwelt in the great house, which was last year 
built, in this town, by Mr Graves, and the 
rest of their servants. The multitude set up 
cottages, booths, and tents about the Town- 
hill. They had long passage. Some of the ships 
were seventeen, some eighteen weeks a coming. 
Many people arrived sick of the scurvy, which 
also increased much after their arrival, for want 
of houses, and by reason of wet lodgings, in their 
cottages, &c. Other distempers also prevailed, 
and although people were generally very loving 
and pitiful, yet the sickness did so prevail, that 
the ivhole were not able to tend the sick as they 
should be tended 5 upon which many perished 
and died, and were buried about the Town-hill; 
— by which means, the provisions were exceed- 
ingly wasted, and no supplies could now be ex- 
pected by planting : besides, there was misera- 
ble damage and spoil of provisions by sea, and 
divers came not so well provided as they would, 
upon a report whilst they were in England, that 
BOW there was enough in New England." 



29 

It was the intention of the Governor and the 
chief part of those, who accompanied him, to 
estabhsli themselves permanently in this place, 
and to this end the Governor made preparation 
for building his house here. But, as our records 
proceed, " the weather being hot, many sick, 
and others faint, after their long voyage, people 
grew discontented, for want of water, who gen- 
erally notioned no water good for a town, but 
running springs; and though this neck do abound 
in good water, yet, for want of experience and 
industry, none could then be found to suit the 
humor of that time, but a brackish spring in the 
sands, by the water side, on the West side 
of the Northwest field, which could not supply 
half the necessities of the maltitade, at which 
time the death of so many was concluded to be 
much the more occasioned, by this want of good 
water." 

In consequence of this difficulty, numbers of 
those, who had purposed to settle themselves at 
Charlestown, sought an establishment at other 
places, as Watertown and Dorchester, and still 
more removed to the other side of the river and 
laid the foundation of Boston. 

"- In the mean time," continue our records, 
"Mr Blackstone dwelling on the other side 
of Charles River, alone, at a place by the In- 
dians called Shaivmut, where he only had a 
cottage, at or not far oJfT the place called Black- 



30 



istone's point, he came and acquainted the Gov- 
ernor of an excellent spring there, withal in- 
viting him and soliciting him thither, w^liere- 
npon after the death of Mr Johnson and divers 
others, the Governor, with Mr Wilson, and 
the greatest part of the church, removed 
thither." 

Such were the inconveniences and distresses 
of the first settlement, which hore so heavily on 
the health and spirits of the colonists, that on the 
return of the vessels, which brought them out, 
more than a hundred went back to England. 

Bat the necessary limits of this address will 
not permit me to pursue the narrative, and I 
can only ask your attention to a few of those re- 
flections, which are suggested by the occasion. 

What our country is, w^hich has sprung from 
these beginnings, we all see and know : — its 
numbers, bordering upon twelve millions, if they 
do not exceed it 5 its great abundance in all that 
composes the wealth and the strength of nations; 
its rich possession of the means of private happi- 
ness ; its progress in the useful and refined arts 
of life; its unequalled enjoyment of political priv- 
ileges; its noble provision of literary, social, 
charitable, and religious establishments, — con- 
stituting altogether a condition of prosperity, 
wiiich, I think, has never been equalled on 
earth. What our country was, on the day we 
commemorate, it is difficult to bring distinctly 



sr 

home to our minds. There was a feeble colony 
in Virginia ; a very small Dutch settlement in 
New York; a population of about three hundred 
at Plymouth; about as many more English in- 
habitants, divided between Salem and Charles- 
town; a few settlers scattered up and down the 
coast; and all the rest a vast wilderness, the 
covert of wild beasts and savages. 

In this condition of things, the charter of the 
colony was brought over, and the foundations 
were laid of a new State. In the motives, 
which led to this enterprize, there were unques- 
tionably two principles united. The first pro- 
jects of settling on the coast of New England 
had their origin in commercial adventure; and 
without the direction, given by this spirit, to the 
minds of men, and the information brought home 
by fishing and trading vessels, the attempt would 
probably never have been made, to establish a 
colony. It deserves to be remarked, therefore, 
in an age like the present, when it is too much 
the practice to measure the value of all public 
enterprizes, by the returns in money, which 
they bring back to their projectors, that probably 
a more unprofitable speculation in a financial 
light, than that of the Council of Plymouth, was 
never undertaken. In a few years, they gladly 
surrendered their patent to the crown, and it is 
doubtful whether, while they held it, they divid- 
ed a farthing's profit. Yet, under their patent, 



52 



and by their grant, was undertaken and accom- 
plished perhaps tlie greatest work on record, in 
the annals of humanity. 

Mixed with this motive of commercial specu- 
lation, (itself liberal and praiseworthy), was 
another, the spring of all that is truly great in 
human affairs, the conservative and redeeming 
principle of our natures, I mean the self-denying 
enthusiasm of our forefathers, sacrificing present 
ease for a great end. I do not mean to say, that 
even they had an accurate foresight of the work, 
in which they were engaged. What an empire 
w as to rise on their humble foundations, imagina- 
tion never revealed to them, nor could they, nor 
did they, conceive it. They contemplated an ob- 
scure and humble colony, safe beneath the toler- 
ation of the crown, where they could enjoy, what 
they prized above all earthly things, the liberty 
of conscience, in the worship of God. Stern as 
they are poiu'trayed to us, they entertained 
neither the bitterness of an indignant separation 
from home, nor the pride of an anticipated and 
triumphant enlargement here: Their enthusiasm 
was rather that of fortitude and endurance 5 pas- 
sive and melancholy. Driven though they were 
from their homes, by the oppression of the estab- 
lished church, they parted from her as a dutiful 
child from a severe but venerated parent. "^'We 
esteem it our honor," say they, in their inimita- 
able letter from on board the Arbella, " to call 



m 

the church of England, from which we rise, our 
dear mother; and we cannot part from our native 
country, where she specially resideth, without 
much sadness of heart and many tears in our 
eyes, ever acknowledging that such hope and 
part as we have obtained in the common Salva- 
tion, we have received in her bosom and sucked 
it from her breasts." And, having, in this same 
pathetic appeal, invoked the prayers of their 
brethren in England, for their welfare, they add, 
" What goodness you shall extend to us, in this 
or any other christian kindness, we, your breth- 
ren, shall labor to repay, in what duty we are 
or shall be able to perform; promising, so far as 
God shall enable us, to give him no rest on your 
behalf, wishing our heads and hearts may be 
fountains of tears for your everlasting welfare, 
when we shall be in our poor cottages in the 
wilderness, overshadowed with the spirit of 
supplication, through the manifold necessities 
and tribulations, which may not altogether 
unexpectedly, nor, we hope, unprofitably befall 
us."* 

In the spirit, that dictated these expressions, 
the disinterested enthusiasm of men, — giving up 
home, and friends, and their native land, for a 
conscientious principle, — we behold not merely 
the cause of the success of their enterprize, but 

^Hutchinson, Vol. T. Appendix, No. 1. 



S4 

the secret source of every great and generous 
workj especially in the founding of social insti- 
tutions, that was ever performed. One trading 
company after another had failed; charters had 
been given, enlarged, and vacated; well appoint- 
ed fleets had been scattered or returned without 
success, and rich adventures had ended in ruin; 
w^hen a few aggrieved gentlemen, turning their 
backs on plenty, at home, and setting their faces 
towards want and danger, in the wilderness, 
took up and accomplished the work. 

The esteem, in which we of the present day 
hold their characters, and the sympathy we feel 
in their trials, are, perhaps, qualified, by finding, 
that this enthusiasm, which inspired them, was 
almost wholly expended on the concerns of the 
church, and was associated in that respect, with 
opinions and feelings, — as we may think, — not 
the most enlarged and liberal. This prejudice, 
however, for such I regard it, ought not to be 
permitted to establish itself, in the minds of any 
generation of the descendants of the fathers of 
New England. The spirit that actuated them 
was the great principle of disinterested enthu- 
siasm, the purest and best that can warm the 
heart and govern the conduct of man. It took a 
direction toward the doctrines and forms of the 
church, partly, of course, because religion is a 
matter, on which tender and ardent minds feel, 
with the greatest sensibility; but mainly because 



35 

they were, in that respect, oppressed and ag- 
grieved. It was precisely the same spirit, which 
animated our fathers in the revohition, assuming 
then the form of tte passion for civil hberty, and 
struggling against political oppression, because 
this was the evil w hich they suffered : And it 
is the same principle, which, in every age, wars 
against tyranny, sympathizes with the oppressed, 
kindles at the report of generous actions, and, 
rising above selfish calculation t^nd sensual indul- 
gence, learns "to scorn delights and live laborious 
days' ' and is ready, when honor and duty call, 
to sacrifice property, and ease, and life. 

There is another thing, that must be borne in 
mind, when we sit in judgment on the character 
of our fathers. The ojnnions which men enter- 
tain, especially on great social institutions, and 
the duties which grow out of them, depend very 
much on the degree of intelligence prevailing in 
the world. Great men go beyond their age, it 
is true 5 but there are limits to this power of an- 
ticipation. T]iev go beyond it in some things, 
but not in all, and not often in any, to the utmost 
point of improvement. Lord Bacon laid down 
the principles of a ne^v philosophy, but did not 
admit the Copernican system. Men who have 
been connected with the establishment of great 
institutions, ought to be judged, by the general 
result of their work. We judge of St Peter's 
by the grandeur of the elevation, and the majesty 



36 

of the dome, not by the flaws in the stone, of 
which the w^alls are built. The fathers of New 
England, a company of private gentlemen, of 
moderate fortunes, bred up under an established 
church, and an arbitrary and hereditary civil 
government, came over the Atlantic two hun- 
dred years ago. They were imperfect, they had 
faults, they committed errors. But they laid 
the foundations of the state of things, which we 
enjoy 5 — of political and religious freedom 5 of 
public and private prosperity; of a great, thriv- 
ing, well-organized republic. What more could 
they have done ? What more could any men 
do ? Above all, wliat lesson should we have 
given them, had we been in existence, and called 
to advise on the subject? Most unquestionably 
we should have discouraged the enterprize alto- 
gether. Our political economists would have 
said, abandon this mad scheme of organizing your 
own church and state, when you can have all the 
benefit of the venerable establishments of the 
mother country, the fruit of the wisdom of ages, 
at a vastly less cost. The capitalists would have 
said, do not be so insane, as to throw away your 
broad acres and solid guineas, in so w ild a spec- 
ulation. The man of common sense, that dread- 
ful foe of great enterprizes, would have discredit- 
ed the whole project. Go to any individual of 
the present day, situated as Governor Win- 
THROP was, at his family mansion, at Groton, 



37 

in England, in the bosom of a happy home, 
surrounded by an aflectionate, prosperous fami- 
ly, in the enjoyment of an ample fortune, and 
tell him, inasmuch as the Government has or- 
dained that the priest should perform a part of 
the sacred service in a white surplice, and make 
the sign of the cross in baptism, that therefore he 
had better convert his estate into money, and 
leave his home and family and go and settle a 
colony, ononeof the islands of the Pacific Ocean, 
or establish himself at the mouth of Columbia 
River, where he would have liberty of conscience. 
I think he w ould recommend to his adviser, to 
go and establish himself, at a certain mansion, 
which benevolence has provided, a little to the 
north of Lechmere's Point. 

I do not say the cases are wholly parallel: But 
such would be the view now taken, on the prin- 
ciples which govern men in our state of society, 
of such a course as that which was pursued by 
Governor Winthrop and his associates. 

I deduce from this, not that they were high- 
minded, and we, base and degenerate; I will not 
so compliment the fathers at the expense of the 
sons. On the contrary, let the crisis arrive; let 
a state of things present itself, (hardly conceiva- 
ble, to be sure, but within the range of possi- 
bility), when our beloved New England no 
longer afforded us the quiet possession of our 
rights, I beUeve we should then show our- 



33 

selves the worthy descendants of the pilgrims; 
and if the earth contained a region, however 
remote, a shore, however barbarous, where we 
could enjoy the liberty denied us at home, that 
we should say, ^ 'where liberty is, there is 
my country," and go and seek it. But let 
us not meantime, nourished as we are out 
of the abundance which they, needy and suf- 
fering themselves, transmitted to us, deride 
their bigotry, which turned trifles into conse- 
quence, or wonder at their zeal, which made 
great sacrifices for small inducements. It is 
ungrateful. 

Nor let us suppose, that it would be too safe 
to institute a comparison, between our fathers 
and ourselves, even on those points, with re- 
gard to which, we have both been called to act. 
It has so happened, that the government of the 
United States has, in the course of the last year, 
been obliged to consider and act on a subject, 
which was one of the first and most anxious, 
that presented itself to the early settlers of New 
England, I mean our relations with the Indian 
tribes. In alluding to this subject, I freely admit 
that, in the infancy of the colonies, when the 
Indians were strong and the colonists weak, — 
w^hen the savage, roaming the woods, with the 
tomahawk and scalping knife, was a foe to the 
New England settlements, alike dangerous and 
terrible, — that some actions were committed ia 



59 

the settlements, in moments of excitement, 
which we cannot too deeply condemn, nor too 
sadly deplore. In allusion to these actions, and 
in vindicating the course, which during the past 
year, has been pursued toward the tribes of civ- 
ilized Indians, resident within the United States, 
it has been argued, that they have not been 
treated with greater severity, by the Govern- 
ment of the United States, or of any of the sepa- 
rate States, than they were treated by the fath- 
ers of New England. But it would seem not 
enough for an age, which is so liberal of its cen- 
sures of the puritans, to show itself only not 
more oppressive than they. Has civilization 
made no progress, in tw^o hundred years ? Will 
any statesman maintain, that the relation of our 
Union, to the feeble and dependent tribes, 
within its limits, is the same, as that of the 
infant colonies, toward the barbarous nations, 
which surrounded them? It w^s the opin- 
ion of that age, that the royal patents gave a 
perfect right to the soil. We have hitherto 
professed to believe,' that nothing can give a per- 
fect right, to the soil occupied by the Indian 
tribes, but the free consent of these tribes, ex- 
pressed by public compact, to alienate their 
right, w^hatever it be. They believed, that 
heathen nations, as such, might be rightfully dis- 
possessed, by christian men. We have professed 
to believe, that this would be a very equivocal 



40 

way of showing our Christianity. And yet, not- 
withstanding these opinions, I do not recollect 
that, in a single instance, our fathers claimed a 
right to eject the native population. For a long 
time, they were the weaker party. Among the 
the first acts of the Plymouth Colony, was an 
amicable treaty with the nearest and most pow- 
erful Indian Chieftain, who lived and died their 
friend. The colonists of Massachusetts, in a 
letter of instructions,* from the company, of 28th 
May 1629, w^ere directed to make a reasonable 
composition with the Indians, who claimed lands 
within their patent. The worthy founders of 
Charlestown, an enterprizing handful of men, 
settled down here, with the free consent of the 
powerful tribe in their neighborhood, whose chief 
remained the friend of the English to the last. — 
In a word, the opinions of our forefathers, on 
this interesting subject, are expressed, by Mr 
PiNCHON, of Springfield, with a discrimination 
and pointedness, almost prophetic of the present 
contest. "I grant," says he, in reference to a 
particular case, "that all these Indiansf are 
within the line of the patent; but yet, you can- 
not say they are your subjects, nor yet within 
your jurisdiction, till they have fully subjected 
themselves, (which I know they have not) and 



♦Hazard's State Papers, Vol. I. p. 277, to the same effect also a still earlier 
letter of instructions. 

tSoe the case referred to in Winthrop's Journal, SavageV edition, Vol. II. 
p. 284. 



41 

until you have bought then* land. Until this be 
done, they must be esteemed as an independent, 
free people." 

Contrast these doctrines with those latterly 
advanced by the Government, both of the 
United States and several of the individual 
States : — That the State Charters give a perfect 
right to the soil and sovereignty, within their 
nominal limits, and that the Indians have only 
a right of occupancy, and that by permission; 
that the treaties with them, negotiated for fifty 
years, with all the forms of the constitution^ 
bind them as far as the treaties contain cessions 
of land, but do not bind us, when Ave guaranty 
the remainder of the land to them : — that when 
the Indians, on the faith of these treaties, cry to 
us for protection against State laws, unconsti- 
tutionally passed, with the known design and to 
the admitted effect, of compelling them to leave 
their homes, it is within the competence of the 
executive, without consulting the National Leg- 
islature, to withhold this protection, and advise 
the Indians as they would escape destruction, to 
fly to the distant wilderness: — and all this, in 
the case, not of savage, unreclaimed tribes, such 
as our forefathers had to deal with, who lived by 
the chase, without permanent habitations, to 
whom one tract of the forest was as much a 
home as another, but tribes, whom we have 
trained to civilization, whom we have converted 

6 



■4^ 

to our religion; v^ilo live, as we do, by the in- 
dustrious arts of life, and who in their official pa- 
pers, written by themselves, plead for their 
rights, in better English, than that of the high 
officers of the government, wlio plead against 
them. 

But I protest against bringing the actions of 
men, in one age, to the standard of another, in 
things that depend on the state of civilizationj 
and public sentiment throughout the world. — 
Try our fathers by the only fair test, the stand- 
ai'd of the age in which tliey lived; and I believe 
that they admit a very good defence, even on the 
point, where they are su])posed to be most vul- 
nerable, that of religious freedom. I do not pre- 
tend, that they w ere gOA erned by an enlightened 
spirit of toleration. Such a spirit, actuating a 
large community made up of men of one mind, 
and possessing absolute power to compel the few 
dissenters to conform, is not so common, even 
at the present day, as may be thought. I have 
great doubts, whether the most liberal sect of 
christians, now extant, if it constituted as great 
a majority as our forefathers did of the commu- 
nity, and if it possessed an unlimited civil and 
ecclesiastical power, would be much more mag- 
nanimous than they were in its use. They 
would not, jierhaps, use the scourge, or the 
lialter : — humanity proscribes them altogether, 
ejccept for the most dangerous crimes; but that 



4.S 

they would allow the order of the community to be 
disturbed, by the intrusion of opposite opinions, 
distasteful to themselves, I have great doubts. — 
With all (he puritanical austerity, and what is 
much more to be deplored, the intolerance of 
dissent, Avhich are ciuirgeable to our fathers, 
they secured, and we are indebted to them for, 
two great principles, without which all the can- 
dor and kindness we may express for our oppo- 
nents, go but a short step toward religious free- 
dom. One of these is the independent charac- 
ter, which they ascribed to each individual 
church 5 the other the separation of Church and 
State. Our fathers were educated, under an 
ecclesiastical system, which combined all the 
churches into one body. They forbore to im- 
itate that system here, though the hierarchy 
of the new churches would have been composed 
of themselves, Avith Johm Cotton at its liead. 
They were educated in a system, where the 
church is part of the state, and vast endowments' 
are bestowed in perpetuity upon it. This, too, 
our fathers could have imitated, securing to 
themselves while they lived, and those who 
thought with them, when they were gone, the 
'isufruct of these endowments, as far as the law 
could work such assurance. They did neither, 
although they had purchased the fair right 
of doing what they pleased, by banishing them- 
selves, for that very reason, from the world.-—- 



They did neither, although they lived in an age, 
when, had they done both, there was no one 
who could rightfully cast reproach upon them. — 
In all the wide world, there was not a govern- 
ment nor a people, that could rebuke them by 
precept or example. Where was there ? In 
England the fires of papacy were hardly quench- 
ed, when tyrannies scarcely less atrocious against 
the puritans began. In France, the protestants 
were at the mercy of a capricious and soon re- 
voked toleration. The Catholics, in Germany, 
were unchaining their legions against the Luther- 
ans ; and in Holland, reformed Holland, fine 
and imprisonment were the reward of Grotius, 
the man, in whom that country will be remem- 
bered, ages after the German Ocean has broken 
over her main dyke. Had our forefathers laid 
the foundation of the most rigid ecclesiastical 
system, that ever oppressed the world, and 
locked up a quarter part of New England in 
mortmain, to endow it, there was not a com- 
munity, in Christendom, to bear witness against 
them. 

If we would, on a broad, rational ground, 
come to a favorable judgment, on the whole, of 
the merit of our forefathers, the founders of New 
England, we have only to compare w hat they 
effected, with what was effected, by their coun- 
trymen and brethren in Great Britain. While 
the fathers of New England, a small band of in- 



45 

dividuals, for the most part of little account in 
the great world of London, were engaged, on this 
side of the Atlantic, in laying the foundations of 
civil and religious liberty, in a new Common- 
wealth, the patriots in England undertook the 
same work of reform, in that country. There 
were difficulties, no doubt, peculiar to the enter- 
prize, as undertaken in each country. In Great 
Britain, there was the strenuous opposition of 
the friends of the established system; in New 
England, there was the difficulty of creating a 
new State, out of materials the most scanty and 
inadequate. If there were fewer obstacles here, 
there were greater means there. They had all the 
improvements of the age, which the Puritans are 
said to have left behind them; all the resources 
of the coiuitry, while the Puritans had nothing 
but their owm slender means; and at length, all 
the patronage of the government; — and with 
them they overthrew the church; trampled the 
House of Lords under foot; brought the King to 
the block; and armed their cause with the whole 
panoply of terror and of love. The fathers of 
New^ England, from first to last, struggled 
against almost every conceivable discouragement. 
While the patriots at home were dictating con- 
cessions to the king, and tearing his confidential 
friends from his arms; the patriots of America 
could scarcely keep their charter out of his 
grasp. While the former were wielding a reso- 



46 

late majority in parliament, under the lead of 
the boldest spirits that ever lived, combining 
with Scotland and subduing Ireland, and strik- 
ing terror into the continental governments; the 
latter were forming a frail Union of the New Eng- 
land Colonies, for immediate defence, against a 
savage foe. While the ^'Lord General Crom- 
well" (who seems to have picked up this modest 
title among the spoils of the routed Aristocracy,) 
in the superb flattery of Milton, 

Guided by faith, and matchless fortitude, 

To peace and truth his glorious way had ploughed. 

And on the neck of crowned fortune proud 

Mad reared God's trophies, 

our truly excellent and incorruptible Wiw- 
THROP was compelled to descend from the chair 
•of state, and submit to an impeachment. 

And what was the comparative success? — 
There were, to say the least, as many excesses 
committed in England as in Massachusetts Bay. 
There was as much intolerance, on the part of 
men just escaped from persecution; as much big- 
otry, on the part of those who had themselves 
suffered for conscience' sake : as much unsea- 
sonable austerity; as much sour temper; as much 
bad taste: — As much for charity to forgive, and 
as much for humanity to deplore. The temper, 
in fact, in the two Commonwealths, was much 
the sam.e; and some of the leading spirits played 
a part in both. And to what effect? On the 
nther side of the Atlantic, the whole experiment 



47 

ended in a miserable failure. The Common- 
wealth became successively oppressive, hateful^ 
contemptible : a greater burden tlian the des- 
potism, on Avhose ruins it was raised. The 
people of England, after sacrifices incalculable of 
property and life, after a struggle of tliirty 
years' duration, allowed the General, who 
happened to have the greatest number of troops 
at his command, to bring back the old system — 
King, Lords, and Church, — with as little cere- 
mony, as he would employ about the orders of 
the day. After asking for thirty years. What is 
the will of the Lord concerning his people ; 
what is it becoming a pure church to do; what 
does the cause of liberty demand, in the day of 
its regeneration; — there was but one cry in Eng- 
land, What does General Monk think, what 
will General Monk do : will he bring back the 
King with conditions or without? And General 
Monk concluded to bring him back without. 

On this side of the Atlantic, and in about 
the same period, the work which our fathers 
took in hand was, in the main, success- 
fully done. They came to found a republican 
colony; they founded it. They came to establish 
a free church. They established what they called 
a free church, and transmitted to us, what w^e 
call a free church. In accomplishing this, which 
they did anticipate, they brought also to pass 
what thev did not so distinctlv foresee, what 



48 

eouid not, in the nature of things, in its detail 
and circumstance, be anticipated, — the founda- 
tion of a great, prosperous and growing republic. 
We have not been just to these men. I am 
disposed to do all justice to the memory of each 
succeeding generation. I admire the indomita- 
ble perseverance, with which the contest for 
principle was kept up, under the second charter. 
I reverence, this side idolatry, the wisdom and 
fortitude of the revolutionary and constitutional 
leaders, but I believe ^\e ought to go back 
beyond them all, for the real framers of the 
CommouA^ealth. I believe that its foundation 
stones, like those of the Capitol of Rome, lie 
deep and solid, out of sight, at the bottom of the 
walls — Cyclopean work — the work of the Pil- 
grims — with nothing below them, but the rock of 
ages. I will not quarrel with their rough corners 
or uneven sides; above all I will not change 
them for the wood, hay and stubble, of modern 
builders. 

But, it is more than time, fellow citizens^ 
that I should draw to a close. These venerable 
foundations of our republic were laid on the 
very spot, where we stand; by the fathers 
of Massachusetts. Here, before they w^ere 
able to erect a suitable place ibr worship, they 
w^ere wont, beneath the branches of a spreading 
tree, to commend their w^ants, their sufferings, 
and their hopes to him, that dwelleth not in 



4.9 

houses made with hands ; here they erected 
their first habitations; /lere they gathered their 
first church; /lere they made their first graves. 

Yes, on the very spot where we are assem- 
bled, crowned with this spacious church; sur- 
rounded by the comfortable abodes of a dense 
population; there were, during the first season, 
after the landing of Winthrop, fewer dwel- 
lings for the living, than graves for the dead. — 
It seemed the will of Providence, that our 
fathers should be tried, by the extremities of 
either season. When the Pilgrims approached 
the coast of Plymouth, they found it clad with 
all the terrors of a northern winter : — 

The sea around was black with storms, 
And white the shores with snow. 

We can scarcely now think, without tears, of 
a company of men, women, and children, brought 
up in tenderness, exposed after several months 
uncomfortable confinement on ship-board, to the 
rigors of our November and December sky, on 
an unknown, barbarous coast, whose frightful 
rocks, even now, strike terror into the heart of 
the returning mariner; though he knows that 
the home of his childhood awaits him, within 
their enclosure. 

The Massachusetts company arrived at the 
close of June. No vineyards, as now, clothed 
our inhospitable hill-sides; no blooming orchards, 
as at the present day, wore the livery of Eden. 

7 



50 



and loaded the breeze with sweet odours; — no 
rich pastures nor waving crops stretched beneath 
the eye, along the way side, from village to 
village, as if Nature had been spreading her halls 
with a carpet, fit to be pressed by the footsteps 
of her descending God ! The beauty and the 
bloom of the year had passed. The earth, not 
yet subdued by culture, bore upon its untilled 
bosom nothing but a dismal forest, that mocked 
their hunger witli rank and unprofitable vegeta- 
tion. The sun was hot in the Heavens. The 
soil was parched, and the hand of man had not 
yet taught its secret springs to flow from their 
fountains. The wasting disease of the heart-sick 
mariner was upon the men; — and the women 
and children tliought of the pleasant homes of 
England, as they sunk down from day to day, and 
died at last for want of a cup of cold water, in this 
melancholy land of Promise. From the time the 
company sailed from England in April, up to the 
December following, there died not less than two 
hundred persons, nearly one a day. 

They were buried, say our records, about 
the Town-hill. This is the Town-hill. We 
are gathered over the ashes of our forefathers. 

It is good, but solemn to be here. We live 
on holy ground; all our hill-tops are the altars 
of precious sacrifice : 

This is stored with the sacred dust of the first 
victims in the cause of Hbertv. ' 



51 

And that is rich from the life stream of the 
noble hearts, who bled to sustain it. 

Here beneath our feet, unconscious that we 
commemorate their worth, repose the meek and 
sainted martyrs, whose flesh sunk beneath the 
lofty temper of their noble spirits ; and there 
rest the heroes, who presented their dauntless 
foreheads to the God of battles, when he came 
to his awful baptism of blood and of fire. 

Happy the fate, which has laid them so near 
to each other, the early and the latter champions 
of the one great cause! And happy we, who 
are permitted to reap in peace the fruit of their 
costly sacrifice! Happy, that we can make our 
pious pilgrimage to the smooth turf of that 
venerable summit, once ploughed with the 
wheels of maddening artillery, ringing with all 
the dreadful voices of war, wrapped in smoke 
and streaming with blood! Happy, that here 
where our fathers sunk, beneath the burning 
sun, into the parched clay, we live, and assem- 
ble, and mingle sweet counsel, and grateful 
thoughts of them, in comfort and peace. 



1 



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